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What does vanilla mean?

Definitions for vanilla
vəˈnɪl ə or, often, -ˈnɛl əvanil·la

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word vanilla.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. vanillanoun

    any of numerous climbing plants of the genus Vanilla having fleshy leaves and clusters of large waxy highly fragrant white or green or topaz flowers

  2. vanilla, vanilla extractnoun

    a flavoring prepared from vanilla beans macerated in alcohol (or imitating vanilla beans)

  3. vanillaadjective

    a distinctive fragrant flavor characteristic of vanilla beans

  4. vanillaadjective

    flavored with vanilla extract

    "he liked vanilla ice cream"

  5. vanillaadjective

    plain and without any extras or adornments

    "the most common type of bond is the straight or plain vanilla bond"; "the basic car is known as the vanilla version"

Wiktionary

  1. vanillanoun

    Any tropical, climbing orchid of the genus Vanilla (especially Vanilla planifolia), bearing podlike fruit yielding an extract used in flavoring food or in perfumes.

  2. vanillanoun

    The fruit or bean of the vanilla plant.

  3. vanillanoun

    The extract of the fruit of the vanilla plant.

  4. vanillanoun

    The distinctive fragrant flavour/flavor characteristic of vanilla extract.

    You can tell that the secret ingredient missing from New Coke was vanilla, because certain South American economies collapsed when it was introduced, and miraculously revived when the old formula was used again.

  5. vanillanoun

    Any artificially produced homologue of vanilla extract, principally vanillin produced from lignin from the paper industry or from petrochemicals.

  6. vanillaadjective

    By association with vanilla as the "plain" flavour of ice cream: the standard, plain, default, unmodified, basic.

    vanilla suit.

  7. Etymology: From vainilla, diminunitive of vaina

Wikipedia

  1. Vanilla

    Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia).Pollination is required to make the plants produce the fruit from which the vanilla spice is obtained. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially. In 1841, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved child who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered that the plant could be hand-pollinated. Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant. Noted French botanist and plant collector Jean Michel Claude Richard falsely claimed to have discovered the technique three or four years earlier. By the end of the 20th century, Albius was considered the true discoverer.Three major species of vanilla currently are grown globally, all of which derive from a species originally found in Mesoamerica, including parts of modern-day Mexico. They are V. planifolia (syn. V. fragrans), grown on Madagascar, Réunion, and other tropical areas along the Indian Ocean; V. tahitensis, grown in the South Pacific; and V. pompona, found in the West Indies, Central America, and South America. The majority of the world's vanilla is the V. planifolia species, more commonly known as Bourbon vanilla (after the former name of Réunion, Île Bourbon) or Madagascar vanilla, which is produced in Madagascar and neighboring islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in Indonesia. Madagascar's and Indonesia's cultivations produce two-thirds of the world's supply of vanilla. Vanilla is the second-most expensive spice (as measured in terms of average price by unit of weight) after saffron because growing the vanilla seed pods is labor-intensive. Nevertheless, vanilla is widely used in both commercial and domestic baking, perfume production, and aromatherapy, as only small amounts are needed to impart its signature flavor and aroma.

ChatGPT

  1. vanilla

    Vanilla typically refers to a flavor derived from the beans of a tropical species of orchid plant, Vanilla planifolia. Its beans or pods are used to produce extracts used in cooking and baking, giving dishes a sweet and aromatic taste. In a broader sense, vanilla is also used to describe something plain or ordinary.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Vanillanoun

    a genus of climbing orchidaceous plants, natives of tropical America

  2. Vanillanoun

    the long podlike capsules of Vanilla planifolia, and V. claviculata, remarkable for their delicate and agreeable odor, for the volatile, odoriferous oil extracted from them; also, the flavoring extract made from the capsules, extensively used in confectionery, perfumery, etc

  3. Etymology: [NL., fr. Sp. vainilla, dim. of Sp. vaina a sheath, a pod, L. vagina; because its grains, or seeds, are contained in little pods.]

Wikidata

  1. Vanilla

    Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla. The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina, simply translates as little pod. Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican peoples cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs, and Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is credited with introducing both vanilla and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s. Initial attempts to cultivate vanilla outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the vanilla orchid and its natural pollinator, the local species of Melipona bee. Pollination is required to set the fruit from which the flavoring is derived. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially. In 1841, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old slave who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered the plant could be hand-pollinated. Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Vanilla

    va-nil′a, n. the dried aromatic sheath-like pod or fruit of a tropical epiphytal orchid, a favourite confection.—adj. Vanill′ic. [Latinised from Fr. vanille—Sp. vainilla—vaina—L. vagina, a sheath.]

The New Hacker's Dictionary

  1. vanilla

    [from the default flavor of ice cream in the U.S.] Ordinary flavor, standard. When used of food, very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract! For example, vanilla wonton soup means ordinary wonton soup, as opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup. Applied to hardware and software, as in “Vanilla Version 7 Unix can't run on a vanilla 11/34.” Also used to orthogonalize chip nomenclature; for instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from a 74LS00, etc. This word differs from canonical in that the latter means ‘default’, whereas vanilla simply means ‘ordinary’. For example, when hackers go on a great-wall, hot-and-sour soup is the canonical soup to get (because that is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the vanilla (wonton) soup.

U.S. National Library of Medicine

  1. Vanilla

    A plant genus of the family ORCHIDACEAE that is the source of the familiar flavoring used in foods and medicines (FLAVORING AGENTS).

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of vanilla in Chaldean Numerology is: 2

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of vanilla in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

Examples of vanilla in a Sentence

  1. Boey Yin Chong:

    Banks that look at plain vanilla deals only or just buyout event deals have felt the strain.

  2. Dipayan Biswas:

    Vanilla doesn't stand out, things that are outrageous and out of the ordinary always get attention.

  3. Jeff Kravitz/MTV:

    Absolutely nothing. I don't know. He showed up, and I don't know. I don't know the guy, nothing happened with me, I only fight real fighters, people that actually fight, you know what I mean. I certainly don't fight little vanilla boy rappers. I don't even know the guy. I don't know anything about him, except that he's with Megan Fox.

  4. Georgina Argamonte:

    Yeah, because it's a little bit of lemon and vanilla and so it's a little bit of sweet and tart. So, I think that mixes with their personality.

  5. Gerard Cassidy:

    These are portfolios of a bygone era that were very, very painful for the banks, they are not plain vanilla portfolios, which means they are more costly to manage. It may just not be worth the headache.

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Popularity rank by frequency of use

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Translations for vanilla

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"vanilla." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 8 Feb. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/vanilla>.

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